Global Issues

Pakistan

• Pakistan missing an estimated 4.9 million women due to preference for male children.

• Source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.

• Destination for men, women, and children from Afghanistan, Iran, and, to a lesser extent, Bangladesh, who are subjected to forced labor and prostitution.

• Boys and girls bought, sold, rented, or kidnapped to work in organized, forced begging rings, domestic servitude, and prostitution.

• Accusations of security forces raping women during interrogations.

• Traditional settling of family feuds in tribal areas, particularly those involving killing, could result in giving daughters of the accused in marriage to the bereaved.

• Hundreds of women reportedly were killed in the name of honor.

• Young girls and women were victims of forced marriages arranged by their families.

• Practice of buying and selling brides also continued in rural areas, although prohibited by law

Advocacy:

• Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers is a coalition of sex worker groups and projects working on issues of HIV and human rights for female, male and transgender sex workers across Asia and the Pacific.

Sources: Stephan Klasen and Claudia Wink, University of Munich: A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? (2001); U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011